ACES ON BRIDGE

“Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.”

— David Eagleman

As East, after you (unwisely?) double the transfer response, South completes the transfer to show a spade fit, and his side reaches the delicate spade game.

You can imagine how the play will go if you win West’s heart jack lead with the ace and return the suit. Declarer wins and cashes two top trumps ending in dummy. He then leads a club to the queen, cashes the club ace, pitches dummy’s club jack on the heart winner and ruffs a club in dummy. The 3-3 club split sees him home.

Even if declarer had, say, a 3=3=4=3 shape, putting up the heart ace might be a mistake, providing declarer with a pitch for dummy’s third diamond. That would remove the need for South to play twice up to his diamond kingqueen.

Essentially, putting up the heart ace at trick one simplifies declarer’s communication problem for him. You can throw a wrench into the works by ducking the first heart.

Since you surely cannot give partner a heart ruff, why not exploit declarer’s entry problems by making him play hearts twice to get his discard, rather than handing him that discard on a silver platter?

Declarer’s best riposte is to cash the spade ace and duck a spade to you. You can, however, get off lead with a low diamond. Then, declarer’s entries back and forth are not quite good enough both to set up his heart discard and to exploit the clubs.

Your double was unsound because you want partner to make his natural lead, not one directed by you.

ANSWER: Facing a disciplined partner, you should make a move here. Aces and kings are good cards facing preempts, as they tend to cover partner’s quick losers, and the spade fillers should come in handy. Start with a two-no-trump inquiry and let partner take the baton from there.